What if Female Video Game Protagonists Looked More Like the Average American Woman?
OnlineGambling.ca recently shared an interesting article about the depiction of women in video games. Their team looked at some research by Karen E. Dill and Kathryn P. Thill that shows that over 80% of women in video games were either represented as sexualized, scantily clad, or a vision of beauty.
They then went ahead and chose 10 popular characters from 8 different video games and created parody images to “reflect the average American female body, plus elements from the issues raised [by a] panel discussion [of women].”
You can head on over to the site and click on each character to read the thought process behind each change, but I’ve included all of the images below with the actual art on the left and the parody on the right. I do think that the portrayal of women in video games should be something that the industry takes a look at more.
What are your thoughts on the changes? I think the next step should be drawing the characters based on people in related occupations (such as a martial artist for the Mortal Kombat characters).
Rayne – BloodRayne
Morrigan – Darkstalkers
Sorceress – Dragon’s Crown
Leona – League of Legends
Miss Fortune – League of Legends
Jade – Mortal Kombat
Mileena – Mortal Kombat
Widowmaker – Overwatch
Ivy – Soulcalibur
Sylvanas – World of Warcraft
